‘The hospital of the future is a place you will never go’ says Reinier de Graaf

International practice, Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) showcased a new short movie, produced by OMA/Reinier de Graaf, as part of their exhibition at Venice Biennale 2021. The 12-minute movie asks the fundamental question, ‘what is the future of the hospital?’

The introspective movie 'Hospital of the Future' explores the changing role of hospital in light of current COVID-19 pandemic and questions the vulnerability of our healthcare system. The exhibit explores how we built and operate our hospital today and hints towards what it could be.

The film explores the history of pandemics, how our societies adapted and how hospital has been in constant flux through all these times; always evolving, always changing, always adapting, always catching up. 

Reinier de Graaf, partner in charge of the project said: “When we were invited to participate in this edition of the Venice Biennale in the summer of 2019, few could have imagined the role the hospital would come to play in ‘How we will live together?’ Meanwhile, the institution has proven key to reconquering a way of life we once took for granted. The time has come to bring the hospital to the forefront of the architectural debate.”

The studio suggests that the hospital of the future will be like a theatre always in flux, transforming its space to the event. The film suggests, just like the 3D printed organs, the future hospital will be 3D printed, using its waste as resource. It will be able to rebuild itself like a closed-loop, self-sufficient system. The hospital will also be able to grow its own medicine and resources like green houses and act as logistic facilities or warehouses, sorting and sending the treatment to our doorstep, once we place the order.

The exhibit showcases to the visitor that there will be no need to visit the hospital in future. It will act remotely, relying on data to diagnose and treat patient individually, remotely monitoring people’s health and operating when needed. This will form a so-called network of healthcare services, which are never in front but always hidden. This future will give way to the machine, freeing staff of the routine work and leaving precision work to be automated.

The exhibit showcases larger-than-life hospital setting, with hospital curtains and fields hospital beds acquired from the Italian army. The film was produced in 2019 by OMA as part of the research work looking into the future of healthcare.

 

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ABOUT REINIER DE GRAAF

Reinier de Graaf (1964, Schiedam) is a Dutch architect and writer. He is a partner in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), where he leads projects in Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Reinier is the co-founder of OMA’s think-tank AMO and Sir Arthur Marshall Visiting Professor of Urban Design at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession and the recently published novel The Masterplan.